The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

A waitress at a Port Richey, FL, restaurant was recently arrested for allegedly using a credit card skimmer to steal customers’ information for the purposes of creating bogus cards. But, she tells the police, the customers she cheated were not nice to her anyway.

“During the interview, she identified the people she skimmed were the ones that ran her around, made her work real hard,” a detective tells WTSP-TV about the waitress. “Maybe she’s scared of a hard day’s work.”

The waitress got the skimmer from a cousin. She would swipe the cards, give the purloined information to the cousin and his ex-girlfriend who would use the bogus cards to buy thousands of dollars worth of goods at Radio Shack and Walmart. These purchases were then sold for cash.

One victim, who once worked in the fraud department at a bank, tells WTSP that as soon as she saw the fraudulent charges on her account, she had a hunch who was behind them.

“She couldn’t look you in the face when she waited on you, she didn’t greet you, she took a long time to come back to the table, she didn’t say thank you,” she explains.

Whatever happened to the good ol’ days of just spitting in a customer’s food if they were nasty to you?